Emotional Intelligence
& Emotion Coaching
Acknowledgements:
‘Tuning in to Kids’ – Sophie Havighurst & Ann Harley
‘Bringing Up Great Kids’ – Australian Childhood Foundation
Dr John Gottman - ‘Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child’
Daniel Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson - ‘The Whole-Brain Child’
Presented by Maria Hutchings (NECAMHS)
What is Emotional Intelligence?
The ability to:
 identify and understand your own emotions
 successfully use emotions during social interactions
 use your emotional awareness to guide you when
solving problems
 deal with frustration and be able to wait to get what you
want
 keep distress from overwhelming your ability to think
 be in control of how and when you express feelings
Emotional Intelligence
Why is emotional intelligence important?
 It allows you to have awareness and control over what you
do
 Results in lower levels of stress, which is associated with
better health & stronger immune systems
 Enables more satisfying friendships and lasting intimate
relationships
 You can soothe yourself, and are therefore able to calmly
focus, concentrate and think when faced with a challenging
situation
 Makes you more resilient – change and stress are easier to
deal with
How emotional intelligence develops
 Influenced by environment and socialisation including
parents, sibling relationships, teacher influences, peer
relationships and others such as grandparents, carers
and childcare workers.
 Some children born with more difficult reactive
emotional styles.
 These children may need more input from
parents/carers to teach them to regulate and manage
emotional styles
Brain Basics - horizontal
 Left side
 Logical thinking
 Organising thoughts into sentences
 Right side
 Experience emotions
 Reading non-verbal cues
Left and Right Brain
Chapter 2. The message centre
Bringing Up Great Kids
7
Lateral Brain Development
Chapter 2. The message centre
Bringing Up Great Kids
8
Bottom-up Brain Development
Chapter 2. The message centre
Bringing Up Great Kids
9
Brain basics – vertical
 ‘reptile brain’ – ‘downstairs brain’
 Acts instinctually
 Makes split second survival decisions
 Brain stem and limbic region
 Amygdala – allows us to act before we think
 ‘mammal brain’ – ‘upstairs brain’
 Leads us toward connection and relationships
 Allows us to think before we act
Dan Seigel – hand model of brain
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-lfP1FBFk
Integration
 Different parts working together in a coordinated, balanced
way
 Horizontal integration
 Left brain logic with right brain emotion
 Vertical integration
 Higher thoughtful parts with lower gut reaction and survival
parts
Brain plasticity
 Brain physically changes throughout our lives
 Experiences change the physical structure of the brain
 100 billion nerve cells with ten thousand connections
Emotional management styles
 Dismissive
 Disapproving
 Laissez-Faire
 Emotion coaching
* John Gottman DVD – parenting styles.
Five Key Steps to Emotion Coaching
1.
Become aware of the child’s emotion and especially notice
lower intensity emotions such as sadness, disappointment or
frustration.
2.
View these emotions as an opportunity for intimacy and
teaching and try not to be impatient with expression of
negative emotions
3.
Communicate your understanding and acceptance of these
emotions
4.
Help child use words to describe what they feel.
5.
Help set limits or help problem solve. You may also
communicate that all wishes and feelings are acceptable but
some behaviours are not.
Why emotion coaching improves behaviour
1.
Emotion coaching is about responding to children
when their feelings are still at a low level of intensity,
which reduces the need for children to escalate their
emotions and behaviour and provides a more optimal time
to teach children about emotions.
2.
If children are emotion coached from an early age
they become well-practiced at self-soothing. They are
more likely to stay calm, even when they are experiencing
strong emotions.
Why emotion coaching improves behaviour
3.
Emotion coaching does not involve disapproval of
children’s emotions so there are fewer points of conflict. At
the same time, there are clear limits about inappropriate
behaviour – children know the rules and the consequences
for breaking them.
4.
Emotion coaching creates a strong bond between
parents/carers/teachers and children, so children are more
responsive to their requests and feel respected and valued.
Discuss
 Thinking about your own parents or reflecting on
conversations with friends …
 What are some of the ways people can be dismissive of
emotions?
 Eg
Telling you not to worry.
Ways of dismissing emotions
 Offer advice
 Ask why a child did or said what they did
 Tell a child not to worry
 Talk only about yourself
 Jump straight into problem solving
 Take the side of the other person instead of listening to
the child’s perspective
 Offer distractions
Emotion coaching communication
When you emotion coach you attend to the emotions the
child experiences. This involves:
 Thinking about how the child is probably feeling
 Possibly considering a comparable situation for yourself
 Helping the child put a verbal label on the feeling.
 Emotion detective activity
Emotion coaching communication
You may respond by asking:
 Did that make you feel _____ when ______?
 Were you feeling ______ when _______?
 It sounds like that made you feel _________?
You may also respond by reflecting how you would feel in a
similar situation
 That would make me feel ______ too.
 It makes me feel ______ when ______ happens also.
Reflecting Feelings Statements
 It looks like you’re very happy.
 You seem a bit sad.
 I can see you are very frustrated.
 Are you feeling annoyed?
 It sounds like you were really scared.
 How did you feel when your toy was taken?
 I wonder if you’re a bit annoyed?
 I bet that made you pretty grumpy.
Emotion Coaching
Empathic
Statements
Name the
=
Feeling
Validate the
+
Feeling
Emotion Coaching
Can pair comments about negative feelings with
positive coping statements
Eg. “I can see you’re getting really frustrated when the
tower keeps falling over but you keep on trying and
hopefully it will stay up eventually.”
Avoid asking “Why?”
Avoid asking a child why they are feeling a certain way because
they will often have no idea or not have the words to describe
the reason.
Tantrums
 Upstairs tantrum
 Child decides to throw a fit
 Could stop if they wanted to
 Able to control emotions and make decisions
 May look out of control
 Needs firm boundaries and clear discussion about
appropriate and inappropriate behaviour
 Downstairs tantrum
 No longer able to use upstairs brain because so upset
 ‘flipped their lid’ – amygdala has hijacked higher parts of
brain
 Needs nurturing, comforting and soothing
 No sense talking consequences or appropriate behaviour
Emotion coaching scenarios
 You observe Braydon deliberately drawing on Jordan’s
picture. Jordan gets angry and hits Braydon.
 Harry comes in from playing outside crying and saying
that he’s lost his jumper
 Sally suddenly scribbles all over her drawing and says ‘ I
can’t draw I’m so stupid’.
Emotional Intelligence
Brain Structures
Resources
 Tuning in to Kids – emotionally intelligent parenting program by
Sophie Havighurst & Ann Harley (University of Melbourne, 2010)
 Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting
by John Gottman with Joan Declaire (Fireside Press 1997)
 The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture
Your Child's Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting
Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive by Daniel J. Siegel and
Tina Payne Bryson (Delacorte Press 2011)
 Bringing Up Great Kids Parenting Program – Australian
Childhood Foundation (2011)